A week full of seminars, events and meetings

This week has many highlights, as I have been basically more out of office than at the office. Not that the work at the office is boring or anything, but of course outside it I meet new people which add to my experience and learning here.

Monday I went to a press conference on the EU Justice Scoreboard which is analyzing the judicial system of all EU countries. The Croatian score was not very good, and at this event high officials such as the Minister of Justice and the President of the Supreme Court were sharing their views on the issue. It was an open event, and besides representatives from media and embassies listening, there were also ordinary citizens who have in practice seen the failures in the system and have had to wait for years to get an answer from the court - we could feel the frustration, anger and deep disappointment of these people.


On Tuesday I attended a conference on Corporate Social Responsibility. It was a long day but well-organized, took place in the exclusive 5-star hotel Esplanade and the lunch offered was delicious. My personal highlight of the day was the speech by the Croatian president Ivo Josipovic. He talked about the difficulty to define CSR, questioned of the roles as profit-making entities companies have or take, realized the influence the values represented by the government has on the society and finished of by talking about the new ethics of doing business.


Startup Sauna from Finland was coming to Zagreb to do a Warmup session with local startup teams. The ambassador of Finland was very excited to meet these people and to connect them with a local similar organization called ZIP. For this to happen all parties involved were invited to an informal dinner Thursday night at the residence. As the location is rather special, it is impossible to arrange anything which is 100% informal and for those who have never been at such a location it all seemed very formal. The food, however, was very delicious again, wine was nice and the conversation was flowing very smoothly from anything between startups, Croatian politics to the question of happiness.

We were also invited to join the actual Warmup event the following day. I had some image what startups are and what kind of people work with such projects. Instead of the excitement, joy and proud to be part of a movement, which I was expecting, I could feel mainly nervousness. This is very understandable, they had to present in front of a big crowd which included high officials, but also the whole scene of startups is rather new in this country and many big obstacles are ahead for those who want to make it. As I am curious by nature, I want to follow the teams I met at the Warmup and find out how their stories continue from here.

So much happens in one day that the weeks feels very long, but at the same time I can't believe that I have been here already four weeks! That also means that I have now completed the first full month as a blog writer. I want to thank everyone who reads it and for the nice feedback I have received. It is very much appreciated!